Ubuntu 11.10, codenamed Oneiric Ocelot, has been released. The new version …

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Ubuntu received a major update today. The developers behind the popular Linux distribution released version 11.10, codenamed Oneiric Ocelot. The update brings a wide range of improvements, including some much-needed enhancements to Ubuntu's Unity shell.

New Ubuntu releases are issued every six months in conformance with the distribution's time-based development cycle. The agenda for version 11.10 was announced back in March, shortly before the release of version 11.04. Ubuntu founder Mark Shuttleworth chose the codename Oneiric Ocelot to reflect the 11.10 cycle's dual emphasis on daydreams and discipline.

The 11.04 release was a major milestone because it introduced some radical changes to the Ubuntu desktop experience. As we wrote in our review, Unity exhibited enormous potential but fell short of expectations due to some weak areas. During the past six months, the developers have been working hard to close key gaps in the shell implementation.

As a result of their efforts, the Unity environment feels more robust in Ubuntu 11.10. The solid support for a work-alike 2D fallback for the shell is a particularly big step forward, ensuring that users can still get the Unity experience even if their graphics hardware doesn't support compositing.

The Unity dash is a bit cleaner in 11.10 and gained a new panel for music search and playback that is designed to integrate with the Banshee audio player. The menus in the top right-hand corner of the screen have been streamlined and reorganized so that they are easier to navigate.

Although Unity has come a long way, there are still some areas where mediocre design compromises Unity's intended usability advantages. The eccentric application launcher, for example, is still a sore spot in an otherwise elegant desktop.

Under the hood

Aside from Unity-related developments, there are a lot of other compelling changes in Ubuntu 11.10.

Mozilla's Thunderbird mail client has replaced Evolution as Ubuntu's default e-mail application. The GNOME login manager used in previous versions of Ubuntu has been replaced in 11.10 with the more flexible LightDM, skinned with a distinctive Unity-like style. The Gwibber social networking client got a major front-end overhaul that improves performance and brings a more native look and feel. Typography got another nice boost in the new version with the addition of an official Ubuntu monotype.

Under the hood, Ubuntu 11.10 uses version 3.0 of the Linux kernel and many components from GNOME 3.2. The legacy GNOME desktop environment, which was available as an alternate login session in 11.04, is no longer part of the default Ubuntu installation in 11.10 (but users who want it can still get it from the repositories).

Alongside the 11.10 development cycle, Canonical built a new Ubuntu developer website that provides technical reference material for third-party application developers. Although the developer documentation effort is still ramping up, the site is already stocked with some useful resources for programmers who are interested in building software that integrates with Ubuntu. The site discusses packaging conventions, development tools, Ubuntu APIs, and application deployment.

The ability to sell programs to Ubuntu users through the Ubuntu Software Center could make the platform a more appealing target for commercial software developers than it has been historically. The new developer site offers a useful starting point to educate developers about how they can take advantage of the opportunity that Ubuntu presents for growing their audience.

Now that Ubuntu 11.10 is ready for consumption, the developers will shift their focus to the next major version: Ubuntu 12.04, which is scheduled for release in April. Earlier this month, Shuttleworth announced that the codename for 12.04 will be Precise Pangolin. Ubuntu 12.04 is a long-term support release, which means that it will be supported with updates for five years on servers and three years on desktops.

The pangolin is a kind of scaly anteater with considerable defensive capabilities—they can curl up into a spiny ball and emit a foul-smelling odor when threatened. In the naming announcement, Shuttleworth joked that pangolins have been known to survive encounters with lions—a reference to the latest version of Apple's Mac OS X operating system, which is codenamed Lion. Much like its namesake, Precise Pangolin is intended to be a highly robust release as the development cycle will focus on stabilization. It is a good name, but doesn't quite inspire the same awe and technical confidence as "Beefy Miracle," the majestic codename of Fedora 17.

Users can download the new version of Ubuntu today from the project's website. For additional details, you can refer to the launch announcement and official release notes. Stay tuned for our in-depth review, which will stalk out of the forest soon.

Precise Pangolin's kind of... clumsy. I admire the aspirations to stability, but Plucky Penguin would have been a much more fun name.

Not terribly impressed by the install so far - Unity still rubs me the wrong way, Unity 2D is too barebones to be useful, and installing the Gnome shell mostly results in a nubby, less featureful approximation of 11.04's mature Gnome install. Back to 11.04 for now, and on to Linux Mint or Debian in the future unless things change.

How's the hardware recognition of the installer? The last couple of versions insisted on not recognizing even common (although aging) devices such as the Broadcom Wireless board and the webcam integrated in my laptop... Oh, and 11.04 had another brilliant error that caused the computer to boot into Unity even without 3d hardware support, meaning you had all of an empty desktop wallpaper to work with...

Sorry if I sound bitter, and I do know it's a free OS, but when Windows and OSX keep getting better, my perception is that Ubuntu is getting worse with each instalment.

As long as the default is still Unity, I will either be using another distro or doing a server install and sticking some other frontend on it. Unity might be good for a touchpad user, but it's crap with a mouse.

Agreed. In 11.4 something that should be simple like erasing recent documents so that you may clear your history is, at least in my hour of troubleshooting, impossible. Hopefully this is fixed. I've chased threads on the net for fixes but nothing seems to work in the last version.

@daemonios That doesn't mean it was loading Unity 3D, that just means the failover recovery didn't work, aka. you continued to try and load unity as your desktop over and over when it wasn't ever going to work and eventually the failover mechanism messed up and you blamed it on Ubuntu. In the login screen you can specify what desktop you want just by clicking one drop down. I can't speak for the webcam, but Broadcom has always been a source of terrible drivers for a very long time, especially in Linux... but after the install process you can open up Additional Drivers and you should be able to install Broadcom's proprietary driver. There is no need for bitterness though, Ubuntu is still a long way ahead of Windows, and as always, it's on par with Mac. Mac and Ubuntu specialize in different tasks, but taken on the whole they are not too terribly different. It may take a little effort to get Ubuntu set up, but you can't expect it to work flawlessly on every computer out of the box.. Windows sure doesn't! Installing that on my laptop was not particularly fun. But, manufacturers go through the pain of getting it installed and working when they ship you the computer preinstalled with Windows, use System76 or another place like it if you want the same ease of use that doesn't require configuration with Ubuntu. It's only fair. Otherwise expect to spend a little time getting it all working correctly and then enjoy it.

Agreed. In 11.4 something that should be simple like erasing recent documents so that you may clear your history is, at least in my hour of troubleshooting, impossible. Hopefully this is fixed. I've chased threads on the net for fixes but nothing seems to work in the last version.

A lot of people dislike Unity, but I'm not one of them. I find Unity to be a clean interface which provides the kind of eye candy a typical end user wants to see! The typical tech site poster doesn't like change (neither do I), but in this case I think it's an important way for Ubuntu to break away from the Linux stereotypes of terminals and complexity and appeal to a wider audience. Regardless what they do, Canonical will have a difficult time pleasing both terminal ninjas and home/business/education users. You have to give them credit in that they let you revert to GNOME, that's the best part of Linux, you won't find that on Windows/Mac. Besides, if you are posting or reading on Ars Technica, you can probably find another more efficient distro if you want!

A lot of people dislike Unity, but I'm not one of them. I find Unity to be a clean interface which provides the kind of eye candy a typical end user wants to see! The typical tech site poster doesn't like change (neither do I), but in this case I think it's an important way for Ubuntu to break away from the Linux stereotypes of terminals and complexity and appeal to a wider audience. Regardless what they do, Canonical will have a difficult time pleasing both terminal ninjas and home/business/education users. You have to give them credit in that they let you revert to GNOME, that's the best part of Linux, you won't find that on Windows/Mac. Besides, if you are posting or reading on Ars Technica, you can probably find another more efficient distro if you want!

But the Gnome 3 shell available for 11.10 is demonstrably inferior to the version in 11.04 and earlier. I don't think "run to another distro if you don't like it" is a particularly mature response; I *want* to use Ubuntu because it represents a tidy and well-maintained Debian derivative with polish. The fact that I had to install Xfce just to obtain rough parity with 11.04's out of the box featureset isn't something to gloss over - it's a notable problem.

But the Gnome 3 shell available for 11.10 is demonstrably inferior to the version in 11.04 and earlier.

Your only talking Ubuntu here, right? 3.2 is a massive improvement over 3.0.

Quote:

I don't think "run to another distro if you don't like it" is a particularly mature response; I *want* to use Ubuntu because it represents a tidy and well-maintained Debian derivative with polish. The fact that I had to install Xfce just to obtain rough parity with 11.04's out of the box featureset isn't something to gloss over - it's a notable problem.

It may not be the most mature response but its certainly a practical one. Other distributions offer a much better gnome-shell experience than Ubuntu does.

But the Gnome 3 shell available for 11.10 is demonstrably inferior to the version in 11.04 and earlier.

Your only talking Ubuntu here, right? 3.2 is a massive improvement over 3.0.

Quote:

I don't think "run to another distro if you don't like it" is a particularly mature response; I *want* to use Ubuntu because it represents a tidy and well-maintained Debian derivative with polish. The fact that I had to install Xfce just to obtain rough parity with 11.04's out of the box featureset isn't something to gloss over - it's a notable problem.

It may not be the most mature response but its certainly a practical one. Other distributions offer a much better gnome-shell experience than Ubuntu does.

Thanks for the constructive advice. What do you recommend? Normally I'm all for minimalist WMs, but this is getting installed onto a box with 8 gigs of RAM, so I can afford to experiment.

Problem is: why don't I care any more?On previous releases i always downloaded a beta image or two and tested them from a livecd. I did wait at least 1 month before upgrading my machines though. Now i didn't even remember that a new release of ubuntu was coming until i saw the arstechnica article. And i feel no urge to test it.Does it mean linux has become "good enough"?

Note: I am using Kubuntu (with KDE) not Ubuntu. Also, i am not a "curious" user. I am a developer and at work i ONLY have kubuntu 11.04 installed. At home I do have a windows installation but i only boot it on some weekends for games. It's not set up for email, documents or anything else. All that i do on a kubuntu installation.

Problem is: why don't I care any more?On previous releases i always downloaded a beta image or two and tested them from a livecd. I did wait at least 1 month before upgrading my machines though. Now i didn't even remember that a new release of ubuntu was coming until i saw the arstechnica article. And i feel no urge to test it.Does it mean linux has become "good enough"?

Note: I am using Kubuntu (with KDE) not Ubuntu. Also, i am not a "curious" user. I am a developer and at work i ONLY have kubuntu 11.04 installed. At home I do have a windows installation but i only boot it on some weekends for games. It's not set up for email, documents or anything else. All that i do on a kubuntu installation.

You've found a good working config, and you need a certain amount of stability for your job and sanity. If your current install works, the packages are still updated, and there's no pressing need to jump ship, then you're probably just served well by what you've got. When the lights start going out on support for your install, that's when it's time to break out Virtualbox and see what will serve you well on the road ahead.

Thanks for the constructive advice. What do you recommend? Normally I'm all for minimalist WMs, but this is getting installed onto a box with 8 gigs of RAM, so I can afford to experiment.

Ubuntu patches a lot of gnome software to make thinks work better in Unity which sometimes lead to less then ideal behaviour in gnome shell. I'll see if I can dig some up but there are quite a few bugs on the Gnome bug tracker that are basically nonbugs introduced by Canonical.

Fedora would be a good option. 16 will ship with 3.2. Otherwise I'd recommend Arch. Its a lot more work to setup but its about as vanilla of an experience as it gets.

That said, 3.2 isn't quite where gnome 2 series left off. But its a sign that things are going in the right direction. They may be doing their own thing but its starting to feel more like a WM that's trying to get out of your way rather then one that doesn't let you do anything.

Selling software? But what about my Communist open-source ideals, that's what I want to know.

Anyways, sounds good I'm glad they're fixing Unity up, I've heard mixed things about it but the general consensus seems to have been it needed some tweaking.

I tried Unity and I had dreams of the UI begging to be killed...

A friend of mine cruelly but concisely described it as "what would happen if Martians tried to re-implement OS X, hearing only second-hand reports of how it actually worked and trying to factor tablets into the equation as well." 11.10's better, but that's like declaring that your kid sister's Indian burns don't hurt as badly as the ones your varsity football linebacker brother gives you.

Thanks for the constructive advice. What do you recommend? Normally I'm all for minimalist WMs, but this is getting installed onto a box with 8 gigs of RAM, so I can afford to experiment.

Ubuntu patches a lot of gnome software to make thinks work better in Unity which sometimes lead to less then ideal behaviour in gnome shell. I'll see if I can dig some up but there are quite a few bugs on the Gnome bug tracker that are basically nonbugs introduced by Canonical.

Fedora would be a good option. 16 will ship with 3.2. Otherwise I'd recommend Arch. Its a lot more work to setup but its about as vanilla of an experience as it gets.

That said, 3.2 isn't quite where gnome 2 series left off. But its a sign that things are going in the right direction. They may be doing their own thing but its starting to feel more like a WM that's trying to get out of your way rather then one that doesn't let you do anything.

I'm leery of Fedora - the last time I installed it on a box it felt slower than Windows Vista did on the same hardware, and the PulseAudio driver was hopelessly broken. Arch sounds like fun, but if I want a plain vanilla x64 install I'll also consider Slackware64. Alas, then I'd spend a couple of hours implementing things that come standard in other distros. But hey - there's always Crunchbang. Thanks!

The problems with Unity based system stretch beyond mere aesthetics. Several programs which have been rock solid have become unstable within Unity environment. One prime example is vncviewer, which has worked flawlessly over half a decade of upgrades in kernel and UI. This program is painfully unstable under Unity. Then there are some programs for medical imaging that use OpenGL for rendering. These programs fail to even fire up because of display issues - and its not about the graphics driver.

I really wanted to like Ocelot, gave it a try from Alpha 3 till beta 2, but I will have to move over to Linux Mint. Mint is everything that Ubuntu could have been if it hadn't taken the eye candy route.

@daemonios That doesn't mean it was loading Unity 3D, that just means the failover recovery didn't work, aka. you continued to try and load unity as your desktop over and over when it wasn't ever going to work and eventually the failover mechanism messed up and you blamed it on Ubuntu. In the login screen you can specify what desktop you want just by clicking one drop down. I can't speak for the webcam, but Broadcom has always been a source of terrible drivers for a very long time, especially in Linux... but after the install process you can open up Additional Drivers and you should be able to install Broadcom's proprietary driver. There is no need for bitterness though, Ubuntu is still a long way ahead of Windows, and as always, it's on par with Mac. Mac and Ubuntu specialize in different tasks, but taken on the whole they are not too terribly different. It may take a little effort to get Ubuntu set up, but you can't expect it to work flawlessly on every computer out of the box.. Windows sure doesn't! Installing that on my laptop was not particularly fun. But, manufacturers go through the pain of getting it installed and working when they ship you the computer preinstalled with Windows, use System76 or another place like it if you want the same ease of use that doesn't require configuration with Ubuntu. It's only fair. Otherwise expect to spend a little time getting it all working correctly and then enjoy it.

I don't see how Ubuntu is better than Windows at all. I've never had driver or install issues in all my years of using Windows. Almost every time I've tried to boot Ubuntu from disc I've had to do work arounds and do a text based install because the GUI installer won't work with a modern Nvidia graphics card. If it did manage to get to the install screen on numerous occasions the user friendly drive configuration wouldn't work for whatever reason resulting in confusing root, swap, and home partition configurating. Hell I've accidentally lost Windows partitions messing around with this. On completing install I've had confusing scenarios where my wireless card goes unrecognized. Nothing is more irritating than having to deal with ndiswrapper bullshit. Next there are the printer issues. God help you if you don't own a printer made by a certain company. Own a Dell, Kodak, or anything more than a basic USB printer and you're stuck with headaches. Last but not least the terrible java support and piss poor GPU utilization. All in all Ubuntu isn't even close to beating Windows as far as usability or reliability.

Precise Pangolin's kind of... clumsy. I admire the aspirations to stability, but Plucky Penguin would have been a much more fun name.

Not terribly impressed by the install so far - Unity still rubs me the wrong way, Unity 2D is too barebones to be useful, and installing the Gnome shell mostly results in a nubby, less featureful approximation of 11.04's mature Gnome install. Back to 11.04 for now, and on to Linux Mint or Debian in the future unless things change.

Things are going very well. There is no need to regress. Mostly what people need is education on how to use Unity.

As long as the default is still Unity, I will either be using another distro or doing a server install and sticking some other frontend on it. Unity might be good for a touchpad user, but it's crap with a mouse.

Here is another example of someone unwilling to learn how to use something new. I can get to anywhere I want to go with one to three mouse clicks. Even faster if I feel like typing two or three letters.

Tried to use Unity, honestly tried. It was immature in 11.04 and using it became grating. Switched to Mint after three months. It is Ubuntu done right.

Looking forward to the next LTS for my servers, though.

Right we have two very different opinions. Mint is not Ubuntu done right. Furthermore Mint will not stay the way they are. They will have to upgrade to Gnome3 at sometime in the future. Mint is a good distro, its just that ugly menu system and plus they are a little restrictive.

you stay with all the updated software center,ubuntu one, etc apps while using a *fast*, *mature*, *non-crushing* interface...

from the time canonical published unity, their os has an expire date for me...the only thing i hope is that when this date comes (that is the end of support for 11.04) something different will appear in the horizon...

A lot of people dislike Unity, but I'm not one of them. I find Unity to be a clean interface which provides the kind of eye candy a typical end user wants to see! The typical tech site poster doesn't like change (neither do I), but in this case I think it's an important way for Ubuntu to break away from the Linux stereotypes of terminals and complexity and appeal to a wider audience. Regardless what they do, Canonical will have a difficult time pleasing both terminal ninjas and home/business/education users. You have to give them credit in that they let you revert to GNOME, that's the best part of Linux, you won't find that on Windows/Mac. Besides, if you are posting or reading on Ars Technica, you can probably find another more efficient distro if you want!

But the Gnome 3 shell available for 11.10 is demonstrably inferior to the version in 11.04 and earlier. I don't think "run to another distro if you don't like it" is a particularly mature response; I *want* to use Ubuntu because it represents a tidy and well-maintained Debian derivative with polish. The fact that I had to install Xfce just to obtain rough parity with 11.04's out of the box featureset isn't something to gloss over - it's a notable problem.

I'm still trying to figure out what features people are missing with Unity. I don't think it's a problem at all. 11.04 did not have the Gnome 3 shell available for it that I'm aware of. They had a fallback Gnome2 style system for people who did not want to learn Unity but people have to remember that Gnome2 will not be supported or used before long.

Problem is: why don't I care any more?On previous releases i always downloaded a beta image or two and tested them from a livecd. I did wait at least 1 month before upgrading my machines though. Now i didn't even remember that a new release of ubuntu was coming until i saw the arstechnica article. And i feel no urge to test it.Does it mean linux has become "good enough"?

Note: I am using Kubuntu (with KDE) not Ubuntu. Also, i am not a "curious" user. I am a developer and at work i ONLY have kubuntu 11.04 installed. At home I do have a windows installation but i only boot it on some weekends for games. It's not set up for email, documents or anything else. All that i do on a kubuntu installation.

At my home I have Windows 7 and Kubuntu 11.04 installed on my laptop and on my desktop I have Ubuntu 11.04, Windows 7, and FreeBsd. Kubuntu is nice but it's hard to warm up to KDE. It gets kinda boring. Windows 7 is good for some games, I do most of my computing work in Ubuntu and I play around with BSD. It's always fun to be learning something new. Its the same way when people play around with OsX when all they know is Windows. Its fun to learn.

I'm still trying to figure out what features people are missing with Unity.

Sane behavior of window menus. The ability to find programs at a reasonable pace. Customizability.

Quote:

They had a fallback Gnome2 style system for people who did not want to learn Unity but people have to remember that Gnome2 will not be supported or used before long.

Unity offers nothing new, sadly, but confuses many issues. And I speak as someone who pushed Ubuntu out to all of the development systems in my group.

Perhaps if flexibility in how the Unity interface could be set up (move the sidebar, customize items on the top panel, f'rex) were increased I wouldn't be considering shifting to Kubuntu or Xubuntu for future releases.

I believe you mean it's too hard to learn something new. Don't be afraid to learn new things. All the functions are there.

Arrogant much? If you can get down off your high horse for a minute you might notice that it's 2011, and us little people down here have certain expectations when it comes to user interfaces. In this day and age there is no excuse for a UI not to be intuitive. The fact that people are complaining about how awkward it is to navigate means it is not intuitive. Your insistence that the reason people don't like it is because they don't understand or simply are too dumb to learn is the typical elitist attitude that for the longest time prevented Linux being taken too seriously by the mainstream. Power users like you or I might be able to muddle our way through, but the fact that these are not isolated complaints mean that there is a fundamental issue that may go beyond a simple "you're too stupid to use it" answer.